Aidan Marlowe's current life:
- Lost his wife due to an aneurysm
- Found out he won the lottery at her funeral
- Moved to a new house in a new neighborhood
- Received creepy, threatening letter telling him to never leave said new house

Carter Wilson wrote quite the detailed psychological suspense novel. Aidan's past is shocking, his present is filled with booze, and his future is uncertain. I enjoyed the building suspense and increasing unreliability of the details we are given as readers. I honestly couldn't guess all the twists, and let's be honest, thrillers where we can't guess everything are the best! Gary Bennett was a fantastic narrator, and I greatly enjoyed the audio copy of this book.

Thanks to Dreamscape Media for the gifted copy of this ALC and to Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC.

"I don't want to hide the person I am to be the person I'm expected to be."

Tokyo Dreaming was a fantastic follow-up to Toyko Ever After. I was REALLY hoping we'd get the second chance romance storyline in this book, and was thrilled with that. Izumi ends up in a bit of a love triangle, navigates her way figuring out who she is and how to be Japanese royalty, and is such a sweet and supportive daughter in this book. If you enjoyed Tokyo Ever After, this is a must-read! I really enjoyed listening to this audiobook narrated by Ali Ahn.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and Macmillan Young Listeners for the copy of this ALC

Mary Jane lives in a strict household - she loves singing in her church choir, helping her mother cook, and listening to Broadway showtimes. She’s shy and quiet when she lands a job nannying for a local doctor and his wife. Let’s just say that the Cone household is a litttttle more progressive than what Mary Jane is used to. They’re messy, order takeout for dinner most of the time, are comfortable with nudity, and are hosting a drug-addicted rockstar and his movie star wife for the summer.

If you say 1970s or coming of age story, I’m not usually one to come running. However, after seeing so many wonderful reviews for Mary Jane, I thought I’d give it a try. I am SO glad that I did because I ended up binging it in one day and absolutely loving it. Mary Jane is such a good narrative on class and status in 1970s Baltimore, and I absolutely loved the push and pull Mary Jane felt from her sheltered upbringing and the liberal Cone household. If you’re looking for a novel to devour on a weekend getaway or a vacation this summer, this is it.

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @williammorrowbooks for the copy of this book.

Gal is a middle-aged mucisian, who, at the height of her career, lived out the typical sex, drugs, and rock and roll culture. When her best friend and former drummer passes away and Gal plays a memorial in her honor, she freezes on stage at the sight of a man's face in the crowd. One she hasn't seen since her glory days. When he turns up dead the next day and her best friend's widower is charged with the death, memories start resurfacing for Gal.

In Hold Me Down, Clea Simon did a wonderful job used the darker side of rock and roll culture to cultivate a mystery. I do love an unreliable narrator in a suspense novel, and that's exactly what we get here, as Gal doesn't quite remember everything that happened when she was at the height of her career. This is a quick read and good mystery, great for a weekend trip if you need to bring along a book! Note there are quite a few trigger warnings in this book, so please DM me if you want to know what they are.

Thanks to the author and Suzy Approved Book Tours for the gifted copy of this book!

Win Me Something caught my eye when it was a Book of the Month choice in November, and I finally got the chance to pick it up for a read. This is a reflective story of a biracial Chinese American woman who has felt unseen and lonely most of her life. After her parents divorce, she doesn’t even feel like she fits into a full part of her family, either. After drifting this way for years, Willa becomes the nanny for a wealthy family in Tribeca and becomes immersed in a different lifestyle. I loved the introspective look into Willa’s life as she learned more about the Adrien family, and then went back to question and reflect on her own upbringing. This is a wonderful narrative on belonging, and I really enjoyed this book.

Jess ends up moving back to Atlanta after her long-time boyfriend is found cheating on her. She shows up at her brother’s house, but it turns out her brother isn’t there… only his VERY attractive roommate, Conor Brady, is there. Jess and Conor have instant chemistry, but ignore it in attempts to be normal roommates. You can see where this is going. This was the sweetest closed-door romance - I loved following Conor and Jess’s banter, tension and work relationship into their HEA. It was absolutely the read I needed while I was in my last day of covid quarantine. I’m excited to continue with the series.

While I really wanted to love this one, I unfortunately wasn't completely taken in by the story. In general, I think slow burn mysteries aren't for me. However, if they ARE your jam, you'll enjoy this book if you like character-driven novels, missing persons storylines and small town stories. The narration by Sandy Rustin was excellent and added to the atmosphere of the story.

Thanks to Minotaur for the ARC and RB Media - Recorded books for the ALC.

4.5 stars

Netflix’s "Inventing Anna" and Hulu's "The Dropout" meets Catch Me If You Can, a captivating novel about an ambitious young woman who gets trapped in a charismatic con artist’s scam.

Cover Story is an epistolary-style debut novel from Susan Rigetti, and it is perfectly bingeable for a weekend or vacation read. Our MC, Lora Ricci, is interning at ELLE magazine when she is taken under the wing of contributing editor and very rich heiress Cat Wolff. From there, Lora starts ghostwriting for Cat while staying at the Plaza Hotel, and as a reader, I was left in the suspense of wondering what was going to happen as the story moved between diary entries from Lora and FBI correspondence about Cat. You know there's something shady going down and just have to keep reading to find out what it is! The ending totally shocked me and was absolutely perfect. I can't wait to see what Susan writes next!

Thank you to Bibliolifestyle and William Morrow for the copy of this book!

3.5 stars

Lyric and Kian are graduate students, roommates, and best friends. Lyric’s research is studying the Sizzle Paradox, gauging the connection between couples. She’s struggling to crack it for herself, and when Kian decides to help her, it starts our longtime friends-to-lovers storyline.

These two are clearly meant to be together and obviously resist it for the majority of the book. When they do finally get together, the circumstances are really well-written to make very cute scenes. I’m not quite sure why Lyric was struggling so much to finish her thesis and why she made some decisions that she did toward the end of the book. These parts were a little frustrating. Lyric and Kian’s lack of communication was also a little much because they were friends for so long and could read each other really well, until they became attracted to each other. This was a quick and cute read!

Read if you like:
- Going to Target with your besties
- Fake dating and friends-to-lovers tropes
- The graduate school setting

Thanks to St. Martin’s Griffin for the copy of this book.